Sunday, 6 November 2016

BAD GIRLS CLUB: GINA LOLLOBRIGIDA IN ‘GO NAKED IN THE WORLD’

I’m always a
sucker for bad girls in cinema. Give me a Neely O’Hara, a Nomi Malone, heck
even a Bette Davis in an awful wig (BEYOND THE FOREST) and I’ll be your film
buff for life. It’s no wonder that I fell for Gina Lollobrigida’s character in
the delectably bad GO NAKED IN THE WORLD
distributed by MGM in 1961. In it she plays Guilietta, a high-priced call girl
who loves swinging her curvy derrière and hanging out in hippie joints. When
she gets stood up by an old coot one evening she meets handsome Anthony
Franciosa who has no idea that she’s a lady of the night. Strange, for you take
one look at her and you connect the dots quite easily. But I digress.

When the script
calls for them to fall madly in love, loud papa Ernest Borgnine hits the roof
and with good reasons. He’s had her many times over, so did his friends and
associates. To paraphrase Elizabeth Taylor’s character in the award winning (!)
but rival BUTTERFIELD 8 (another MGM film), she’s the slut of all time. When he
reveals this to Franciosa, sonny-boy cries liar but soon learns the truth and quickly
ends the relationship with Lollobrigida. Miserable as any manly man of the ‘60s
can be, he drowns his sorrow in cheap booze and hotels until he decides to face
his problem head on. So he kills his dad. No, just kidding, but it’s not that
farfetched of an idea since their relationship can only be described as very volatile.
Son wants to be his own person, dad wants him to be more like him...

Like I said, Franciosa
sobers up.He soon rekindles his
relationship with Lollobrigida (he’s in LOVE, people). Before she quits the
business she warns him how hard it’ll be for him to get used to the idea of her
past life. He acts as if it’s nothing at all but we the spectators know better.
Our hunch is quickly confirmed when loud papa shows up in Acapulco where the
two have moved to start anew. He bribes Lollobrigida to stay away from his son.
She refuses but quickly changes her tune when she realises that, hooking or not, she will always
be trouble for Franciosa. So she kills him. Nah, she instead pretends to go
back to her old ways. This is the best part of the film. She flirts, she
drinks, she dances (she even gets gang-raped off camera) all in the space of a
few minutes while Franciosa looks like a kicked dog. Later on, unable to live with herself any longer and all clad in white (wouldn’t you know? repentance), she throws
herself into the ocean to forever be with her maker. Anyway, so ends her misery
and ours who are this close from running screaming from the room.

GO NAKED IN THE WORLD is based on the Tom T. Chamale’s
novel and directed by MILDRED PIERCE screenwriter Ranald McDougall (helped by
non-credited Charles Walters). As much as I enjoyed the film, I came away from it
with a splitting headache. I blame this mostly on Borgnine’s constant shouting which
made me lower the volume on my remote and put on the close captioned. Bombshell
Lollobrigida may have top billing for this but it’s Franciosa who carries the
film, which is a shame since the whole reason to catch this flick is to see her
in action. In fact, she should have put
her foot down and convince the high rollers to use her more, like any good
sleazy chicks in high-budget films should. Just ask any other celluloid bad
girls, Stanwyck, Davis, Taylor. THEY knew how to make the most of it. Judging
by the shaking of her bonbon in that next to last scene of the film, I’m sure
Lollobrigida could have succeeded just as well. Nonetheless, give this film a
try. It has its moments.